"Topfreedom in Canada has largely been an attempt to combat the interpretation of indecency laws that considered a woman's breasts to be indecent, and therefore their exhibition in public an offence."

"In Canada, ... what constitutes an indecent act is not defined, and is open to interpretation by the courts.

In 1991, toplessness as an indecent act was challenged in Guelph, Ontario, by Gwen Jacob, who removed her shirt and was charged with indecency. Part of her defense was the double standards between men and women.

Although she was convicted, this was overturned by the Court of Appeal. This case determined that being topless is not indecent within the meaning of the Criminal Code. However, it did not establish any constitutional right of equality.

This case subsequently led to the acquittal of women in British Columbia and Saskatchewan who faced similar charges.

Although each Province and Territory technically reserves its right to interpret the law as it pleases, the Ontario case has proved influential. Since the matter has not been determined by the Supreme Court of Canada, it is still possible that a woman could be convicted elsewhere in Canada, but interpretation of moral law in Canada has become increasingly liberalised.

There do not appear to have been any further women charged in Canada since these cases were decided."

Honestly, I think it is time for people to just grow up. We all have bodies and they are all pretty much the same, sex differences aside. Every child knows perfectly well what every other child looks like. Who are we trying to protect, and why? People who get worked up about nudity are just perpetuating religious nonsense about sin and shame. How can something as natural as the human body be shameful? What a stupid idea.

There was some publicity a few years ago about a naked man riding a bicycle in a reserve. Then a few people staged a naked bike ride in Napier. None were prosecuted. My understanding, which could of course be wrong, is that there is no actual law prohibiting anyone from appearing nude in public, as long as you aren't doing anything else that might be construed as offensive. Presumably you could visit the supermarket au naturale if you wanted to, but you might be done for disturbing the peace or something lame like that (assuming you survived the experience). I'm from Amsterdam and we used to get the occasional individual wandering around the city in the buff. There were also areas in the main park where the underdressed liked to congregate. Don't know if this is still the case. Although there were some topless sunbathers, those who want to do without any clothes in public usually seem to be male.

An ethics debate sprang up at Wellington's Free the Nipple Beach Day on Saturday [December 2016], as 22 topless women lay in the sun at Oriental Bay.

'It might be legal to come down and take photos of these women, but it's really disrespectful to do things without someone's consent,' Pollyanna Besley, organiser of the event said, as she bared her breasts on the sand.

The event was aimed at promoting gender equality and desexualising the nipple, Besley said.

It attracted a huge amount of attention, including criticism from Family First director Bob McCoskrie, who labelled it 'offensive behaviour'.

Others suggested that the women were putting themselves at risk of being photographed or harassed due to the location's outdoor, public nature.

Brent Higham parked himself and his camera lens on a table on the footpath next to the women so he could take photos of them.

When asked if they gave consent, he replied 'it's a public place'.

'I am not a sleaze or a pervert, I photograph what I like, things that stand out.

'At the moment it's something we don't see.'

Initially, he said his photos would appear 'nowhere' but later said he may enter one in a photography competition.

Upon being told the women felt uncomfortable with his camera pointed at them, Higham left.

Besley said it came down to respect for people and their personal privacy.

'There is quite a crowd, and there are a lot of people who are taking our photos, look at them – they're all staring.'

One woman walked past the event with a pronounced scowl on her face. Others didn't bat an eyelid.

'No tan lines,' one man said to his beach companions as he passed the topless women, 'good on them'.

It was a perfect summer's day in Wellington so Oriental Bay was buzzing, but some admitted they had come down with the intention of taking photos of the women, and had no desire to seek their consent.

The crowd grew soon after midday. Although hundreds had said they would come, a total of 22 women and seven men took part.

A group of women who were laying nearby said they were fully supportive of the event, but didn't feel relaxed enough to go topless, due to the crowd.

'There's no respect for privacy,' said Alice Plier​, who was fully clothed.

'If they want to upload it [to social media] they can do it themselves.'

Wellington man Tim Pate also got his shirt off for the event, and said he was acutely aware that people were staring.

'To sit there and watch is weird. I wonder if I could have gone up there and said something intelligent and asked them what's going on.

'We need to normalise things like the nipple and it [shouldn't be] sexualised. It's already in the media, it's on TV, it's in music videos, what's so different about on the beach?'"

MikeAqua:However ... the feminist utopia in which women walk about topless and men don't even notice (because we are no-longer 'conditioned' to notice) seems unrealistic to me as a biologist

seems to work perfectly ok and occurs in many societies around the world. Maybe you should ask an anthropologist ; ).

I'm confident a good biological anthropologist would agree with me.

In societies where women largely go topless, consider the effects of gravity ... setting that aside how do you know men [in those societies] don't notice topless women?

In a NZ context we are talking about women being occasionally topless- presumably in similar circumstances to men now. So I guess a sensible analogy would be whether any women find the sight of topless men gratifying given that seeing topless men is common place. All male reviews go topless so I guess the answer to that question is yes.

And .... trying to keep this with the FUG ... you also have to consider what sexual behaviour between men and women typically involves.